Our Vision and Mission Statement
Our Vision
· To provide high quality nursery experience where children are at the heart of everything
· To provide active learning experiences that incorporate what the children are interested in along with a flexible theme which encourage children to be the authors of their own learning.
· To provide natural connections through indoor and outdoor play; that allows them to engage in self-discovery, problem solve and collaborate with their peers.
· To create a safe and trusting relationship with children and their families, by respecting parents as their child’s first and most valuable educators.
· To celebrate diversity by welcoming and respecting the things that make each child unique.
· To ignite a child’s curiosity and providing them with first hand opportunities to value and learn life skills that will support them in their future life.
· To provide opportunities for children to be early readers, writers, and little scientist!
Our Mission Statement
To provide children opportunities to be adventurers and explorers, and as educators.
To provide skilled staff that guides the children in the understanding and expanding of their discoveries.
To provide a firm foundation to move forward within the world, with British Values engraved in their lifes.
To provide optimum learning and development opportunities and provide them challenges that will stimulate their learning and assist them to be great academic achievers.
To provide encouraged to children to accept challenges, learn through play-do-review strategy, recognising and tackling age appropriate risks and recognising dangers.
To provide equality and provide every child optimum opportunities to gain confidence, learn, develop, explore and experiment through a variety of resources indoors and outdoors that satisfy the emotional, social, physical, and creative needs.
To provide all the children the best possible start in life.
We strive to ensure that all children are ‘school ready’ when leaving us and have a accelerating bright start to their school years which will create ‘better futures’ for all children at Brighter Beginnings Day Nursery!
Extra curriculum
Extra curriculum
Extra curriculum
EYFS Reforms
Intent, Implementation, Impact are the key to our every early years curriculum
The three I’s of intent-implementation-impact” work hand in hand with the three core aspects of successful early learning based on our OAP cycle ‘, observation, planning and Assessment.
We believe it is crucially important that an early learning curriculum is responsive to the changes needs of children so that opportunities for growth and development are not missed.
We have high aspirations for our children and we share this with our parents and carers through our curriculum workshops where we share:
The intent, so our learning intentions for the children as supported by the themes that we choose which take into consideration children’s interests;
Our implementation and teaching strategies that we use in our indoor and outdoor environment to support the building of the different skills; and finally.
The impact that we obtain in the development of our children through early learning projects and activities.
Enabling Environment
A well-organised and carefully thought out environment acts as a “third teacher”. Displays invite children to participate in learning activities and enquire about patterns and structures, often exploring by themselves. Natural materials provide sensorial stimulation and prompts for learning about the world.
The focus of the younger babes and two year old room is on the development of the three prime areas of learning. Establishing key relationships with our children is the first stepping stone to their educational journey. The key person-child relationships will allow us to learn what interests the children and fascinates them so we can use this interest and fascinations to motivate them and support their learning.
We want children to develop a sense of belonging in the nursery and develop their confidence in working with other children and their key teachers.
play based curriculum
We believe Play is the principal means of learning for children and a child’s play is his/her work. At Brighter Beginning Nursery we recognize the possibilities of play as providing opportunities to foster relaxation, build curiosity and support critical thinking, creates imagination, imitation and communication progression through speaking, reading, writing and socialising in different situations. We offer our children a play based curriculum which meets all the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage and supports all aspects of their learning and development. Children will experience a wide range of planned activities and challenges designed to promote active learning both indoors and outdoors. These activities are based upon children’s interests, local and topical events and seasonal themes. Play in a secure environment with effective adult support allows the children to explore, investigate and enjoy the learning experience. We help them to practice and develop ideas, concepts and skills in a unique and non-threatening way, without fear of failure. We have adapted the curriculum to ensure that all children play and explore all areas of learning through fun innovative activities stimulated by experienced staff. all children regardless of abilities are encouraged to investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’ as we believe that children should learn to face a challenge. Active learning is encouraged throughout the day nursery and children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and staff will celebrate their goals and enable the children to enjoy achievements.
We encourage that all children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things hence we ensure that the children learn and build on creating and thinking critically in different situation which will support them in their adult life.
We stipulate a rich play based curriculum to develop the whole child by providing first hand experiences (seeing, doing, touching for themselves) in all areas of learning experiencing and managing age related challenges and recognises and taking age appropriate risks. The skills, concepts and knowledge we want the children to develop can be optimised through many different activities, so do not worry if your child does not choose to join in one activity, he/she will have the opportunity to learn from other activities. It is important that children choose their own activities as this promotes and encourages our core British Values of independence, and build’s mutual respect to different choices. We all learn much more easily if we enjoy what we are doing. We do on occasion direct children to adult led activities if they need help to get involved in play. Young children learn from everything they do, and their learning is not separated or negotiated into individual subjects, as it will be later on in their school lives.
Our planning, however, takes account of the individual areas of development. We follow the Early Years Foundation Curriculum, this is based around areas of learning:- • Personal Social and Emotional Development • Communication and Language • Literacy • Mathematics • Understanding the World • Expressive Arts and Design • Physical Development
Prime & Specific areas of learning
Overall, there are seven areas of learning. These are broken down into the Prime Areas and the Specific Areas. The reason for this is that each of these is more pertinent for different age groups. For instance, the Prime Areas are more relevant for the younger age group, while the Specific Areas are more relevant for the older age group.
The three Prime Areas of learning are:
· Communication and Language
· Physical Development
· Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Solid foundations in these enable us to instil the acquisition and development of key skills in the Specific Areas of Literacy, Maths, Expressive Arts, and so-called Understanding of the World.
Children take part in different phonics and maths workshops according to their level of development. We learn about experiments, the world and our environment through our science and Forest School sessions.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development Personal, Social and Emotional Development will be done in a fun social, interactive way through daily activities, participation, social skills and learning about managing feelings and behaviour. Children will be supported to recognise acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and actions of day-day and knowing how to be good British citizens.
This will also be taught in formal activities, and will underpin all aspects of Early Learning.
We have high expectations of children’s behaviour and we respect their choices and ideas. In return we expect children to treat each other and all adults with curiosity and with kindness. We encourage the development of self-confidence, independence and self-awareness. We prepare the children for new events and special days, as these can be worrying for young children. This is done through stories and puppets we deal with issues such as toileting, bedtime routines, sharing, turn taking, birth of siblings and other major issues that affect children in their home life.
Communication and Language Development, Another key area is on the emphasis on communication and language development. Through books, rhymes and songs we work with children to develop their vocabulary, sentence structure and listening skills.
The older children are also working on social skills like learning to work together as a group, sharing resources and ideas and learning how to negotiate with their peers.
Communication and language development is promoted through the use of books. We explore key vocabulary, the structure of stories (beginning-middle-end format), different plots and characters and we also act out, sequencing and changing the direction and endings of our stories. Through role play we have many opportunities to become the different characters in our stories and to act them out.
In PE classes, we experiment with different ways of moving, learning how to negotiate space and developing our control and coordination.
We strongly believe Communication and language development are two of our most important aims, and opportunities for children to improve their skills are essential as they are the basis for all learning. We do this by providing a language rich environment children are encourage to develop communication and language skills which also co-insides the listening and attention. At Brighter Beginnings we always have time to talk with the children, and most important of all, to listen to them. Children are encouraged through activities to talk and listen to each other and adults in a variety of situations.
Literacyencompasses reading and writing from the earliest stages of development such as looking at books and making marks and patterns in sand, shaving foam, water, sensory feel, and other means learning and development. Books are always available for children to choose and enjoy, books are collaborated in all areas of learning and are available for all children to access and read, alongside this staff are happy to read stories to individuals or groups of children. Children will have the Opportunity to borrow story and rhyme bags to share with you at home. We encourage children to develop writing skills both indoors and outdoors. For example, our indoor role play area presents children with reasons to write eg shopping lists, telephone messages, menu orders etc name writing and much more. The outdoor area allows children to make marks on a large scale using water and paint brushes, chalks and paint etc.
Mathematics: Mathematical understanding takes place in all areas where children have opportunities to develop numbers, colours, shapes, measurement/size, matching, ordering and sorting. Through activities children often solve mathematical problems, count, use numbers, mathematical vocabulary and do addition and subtraction in a practical way. Using mathematical concepts and enriching thier mathematical vocabulary. They identify and use numbers up to 10 and sometimes beyond during their role play and as part of the day to day routine – straws in milk, or fruit on trays at snack time, children in groups etc. Children also explore mathematical concepts such as capacity, weight, height, balance and estimation eg by filling cups and containers in the sand and water, both indoors and outdoors. We encourage children to recognise numbers and count out loud and do addition and subtraction in a practical way.
Understanding the World: Understanding of the World activities are based on first hand experiences, and real life opportunities where children have opportunities to experiment, investigate, find out, ask questions and use their senses. Children are encouraged to use a variety of technology and small world opportunities are provided. We have a wide range of equipment including story phones, digital cameras, remote control toys and walkie talkies. The equipment is used across all areas of the curriculum where children’s skills and knowledge are developed. Children are encouraged to develop an awareness of being part of a community, for example their nursery, their families, their local community etc. We celebrate family, traditional and cultural customs such as children’s birthdays, special events, Eid, Ramadhan, Christmas, Easter, Diwali and Chinese New Year. All children experience cooking/baking and exploring activities where they look at how things change (as well as eating the products!).
Expressive Arts and Design Expressive Arts gives children time to explore and experiment with ideas, materials, activities textures, music, art, and feelings. Through this they learn to share, develop imagination, solve problems, extend vocabulary and play co-operatively with each other. Role play opportunities change frequently and we aim to reflect “life experiences” where children are given the opportunities to dress up and take on various roles e.g. fire fighters, hairdresser, doctor, builder, vet, cook and much more. Our children are encouraged to enjoy taking part in singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. Through these activities they find new ways of expressing themselves, improve their listening skills, learn to appreciate and enjoy a variety of music and develop an understanding of musical concepts such as loud/soft, fast/slow etc. Children are encouraged to participate in gluing, painting, printing, constructing, creating, and modelling. Opportunities like this help children develop their imagination, experiment with materials, plan-do-review-reflect and solve problems and gain confidence from creating something of their own. We as adults must value children’s work, you can do this by collecting your children’s work and acknowledging their efforts.
Physical Development As adults we are aware how important it is for young children to move, exercise, stay healthy and fit. We encourage children to crawl, run, jump, spin and move how their bodies feel they should. All of this movement has direct impact on their ability to concentrate, be social, develop good fine motor control skills and become comfortable in their own bodies. Young children have lots of energy and we use our garden and climbing apparatus at all times of the year. We work outside every day of the year in all weather. Children do need coats in winter and sun hats and sun cream on the warmer sunny days. Activities are planned to develop children’s skills as well as develop their gross motor skills such as climbing, balancing and running. Finer skills are also developed through construction equipment, jigsaws, threading, scissor work and a range of sensory experiences. These experiences help develop skills to be able to later on use a pencil effectively.